Rochester woman in bellwether case on hip implants

A Rochester area woman’s court complaint has been selected to be heard as one of two bellwether cases that will help decide the outcome of several thousand suits targeting DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. and Johnson & Johnson for selling allegedly defective hip implants.

Owner of the Good Sign Co., Ann McCracken is one of 7,000 U.S. hip-replacement patients who have sued the companies over DePuy’s ASR XL Acetabular System.

As one of 10 plaintiffs in an action first filed in the Rochester U.S. District Court in 2011, McCracken sued the firms, alleging DePuy and Johnson & Johnson knew the device was defective in 2009 when she had the first of several hip-replacement surgeries.

“The court could not have selected a more deserving or severely impacted plaintiff than Ann McCracken as one of two lead trial cases in this national litigation,” said Hadley Matarazzo of Faraci & Lange LLP.

Matarazzo is one of two Faraci & Lange attorneys representing McCracken and approximately 40 others in complaints against DuPuy and Johnson & Johnson.

McCracken, a single mother who is now 57, first had the ASR replacement hip, a metal-on-metal device marketed as particularly appropriate for younger, more active candidates, implanted in 2009, her court complaint states. One year later, DePuy recalled the device, advising surgeons who had implanted ASRs that they should warn patients of possible ill effects, including permanent tissue damage.

McCracken underwent a second surgery in early 2011 but suffered two hip dislocations that year. A third surgery in the same year left her with permanently impaired range of motion and likely to need future surgeries, her attorneys said.

In an answer to McCracken’s complaint filed in the Ohio federal court in 2011, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson ask for a jury trial and “deny each and every allegation, statement and matter,” in McCracken’s court papers.

The case is slated to be heard in the Northern District of Ohio by District Judge David Katz.